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"For the sciences, the way to change science's perception of things is to wait until all the old farts have died off."
- Larry Niven
 |
| Disintegrator Ray (Dis Ray) | ||
| A device that projects a beam reducing matter to nothingness. |
| In about 2109, it seems the conflict was finally precipitated. The Mongolians, with overwhelming fleets of great airships, and a science that far outstripped that of crippled America, swept in over the Pacific and Atlantic Coasts, and down from Canada, annihilating American aircraft, armies and cities with their terrific disintegrator ray. These rays were projected from a machine not unlike a searchlight in appearance, the reflector of which, however, was not material substance, but a complicated balance of interacting electronic forces. This resulted in a terribly destructive beam. Under its influence, material substance melted into "nothingness"; i.e., into electronic vibrations. It destroyed all then known substances, from air to the most dense metals and stone. |
| From Armageddon: 2419 A.D.,
by Philip Frances Nowlan. Published by Amazing Stories in 1928 Additional resources -
|
Edmund Hamilton described something quite similar to this in his novel Crashing Suns, published the same year. See the entry for de-atomizing ray.
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'A worker replaced by a nubot... had to be compensated.'
'... forcing the energy transfer which allowed him to regrow his lost fingers.'
'The car surged and lifted, clearing its top by a negligible margin.'
Science fiction authors are serious about sleep, too.
'I had explained," said Nessus, "that our civilisation was dying in its own waste heat.'
'Just what did I want Flexible Frank to do? - any work a human being does around a house.'
SF writers have thought about this since the 19th century.
